


Family

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2019 [8]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brainwashing, Canonical Character Death, Claustrophobia, Drama, Family, Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Past Violence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Strong Language, Survival, Survivor Guilt, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: “You took my family from me so that I could have yours.”





	1. JUDGE

[- **JUDGE** -]

  
“When the world is ready to be born anew, we will step into the light. I am your Father… And you are my child. And together, we will march to Eden’s Gate.”  
  
Joseph’s speech was punctuated by a scream.  
  
“ _Rook! **Rook!**_ ”  
  
Rook recognized the voice immediately.  
  
Her first thought:  
_  
Oh, thank God I’m not the only one._  
  
“Please,” Rook begged, straining at her cuffs and grimacing as her body ached from the pain of it, “Please, Hudson’s freaking out at being in a bunker again and she’s going to hyperventilate, please let me go to her and calm her down, _please_ Joseph.”  
  
Joseph rose from his chair. “I’ll speak with her.”  
  
“ _No!_ She’s going to freak out even worse when she sees you!”  
  
But Joseph left.  
  
Seconds later, Hudson’s screams became more frantic.  
  
Rook curled in on herself and began to shake.  
   
[---]  
   
It was- inasmuch as Rook could tell- a week before Joseph un-cuffed her and let her see Hudson and Pratt.  
  
Hudson was in the other bedroom, handcuffed similarly to how Rook had been: Sitting on the floor with the cuffs secured to the bedpost. She was curled into a ball, knees tucked to her chest, but she unfolded herself and cried out when she saw Rook. Rook dropped to her knees in front of her and wrapped her arms around Hudson, squeezing her tightly even as her nerves screamed from pain. “Are you okay?” She asked after they’d parted.  
  
The question was answered just by getting a good look at Hudson: Only her right arm was actually restrained by the cuffs- the left was in a sling, and Rook regretted hugging her so tightly. “I’ve been worse,” Hudson said, though her voice was soaked through with misery. “What about you?”  
  
Rook swallowed. “Everything hurts,” She whispered, not just about the bruises on her back or the cuts that the shattered windshield had left on her face, arms, and chest.  
  
Hudson nodded, empathy etched in every line of her face.  
  
Joseph approached them, and Hudson immediately drew back, crushing herself back against the wall. Maybe she was remembering John’s bunker, and Joseph’s casual indifference to the torture that had been inflicted on them by his baby brother; or maybe, after correctly predicting an apocalypse, Hudson had found an entirely new reason to be terrified of Joseph Seed.  
  
But Joseph only unlocked her cuffs, nodding to the door.  
  
“Deputy Pratt is this way.”  
   
[---]  
   
Pratt was unconscious.  
  
Joseph had put him in Dutch’s small infirmary, and it immediately became clear why: Though it had been cleaned and tended to, it was obvious that Pratt had sustained a serious head-injury in the crash, dangerously close to his temple. When Hudson reached out to touch his hand, Pratt didn’t so much as twitch from the stimulation.  
  
“Has he woken up at all?” Rook asked quietly.  
  
“There was a moment, two days ago, where he seemed to open his eyes and have some awareness,” Joseph responded calmly. “But it was brief, and he’s slept since then. His breathing has improved, however: It’s deeper and steadier than it was before.”  
  
Could he be in a coma? Could he be a vegetable?  
  
No, Rook thought- ‘vegetables’ were brain-dead, and a body could only continue functioning on life-support without a brain. Dutch’s infirmary was impressive, but it wasn’t a fully-stocked emergency room.  
  
No. Pratt was sleeping off a serious injury, and would hopefully be awake soon.  
  
“What about Whitehorse?” Hudson looked up at Joseph from where she sat at Pratt’s side, and her expression told Rook that she already suspected the answer.  
  
Joseph looked between them both, hands folded before him.  
  
“I’m afraid,” He said, “That Sheriff Whitehorse’s injuries were too extensive. He had no pulse, and so I left his body where it lay.”  
  
Hudson let out a low, pained sound, bringing her good hand up to cover her eyes. She had worked with Whitehorse the longest of the three of them, and likely felt his loss keenly; this was layered on top of knowing there was some chance of Pratt not waking up again, and though she’d only known them a relatively short time, Rook knew Hudson and Pratt were good friends.  
  
Rook’s eyes burned, but she didn’t cry yet. Something darker than grief was nagging at her.  
  
Joseph had killed Dutch- that much was obvious.  
  
And Whitehorse was killed in the crash- according to Joseph, anyway.  
  
But at the end of the day, this left Joseph with the three young, injured, traumatized Deputies that had been held captive by his siblings.  
  
Rook shuddered, and hoped that it was all just a terrible coincidence.  
   
[---]  
   
They left Pratt in the infirmary.  
  
Joseph brought Rook and Hudson to the living room/kitchen area.  
  
“Sit,” He said, nodding to the table near the countertop.  
  
Rook and Hudson exchanged looks, but then slowly sat down.  
  
The last time Rook had been down here, it had been to talk to Dutch before confronting Joseph. He’d patted her on the shoulder and gruffly wished her luck, the closest he could get to real sentiment. Her throat clogged at the knowledge that she was sitting in Dutch’s bunker without him present, his body smoldering somewhere outside the bunker in the remnants of the beautiful island he’d set up shop on.  
  
Joseph proceeded to go to the counter and start opening cans. He started whistling as he worked, and it became obvious after a few minutes of observation that Joseph was making dinner for them.  
  
Hudson’s disbelieving gaze met Rook’s across the table, and a curious sort of understanding passed between them without a single word needed: _He’s taking this Father thing **way** too literally._  
  
Rook nodded: _Oh yeah._  
  
Joseph served them soup with all the air of a host feeding his guests. Anyone observing the scene from the outside would have seen a shirtless man covered in religious scars and tattoos serving two women that looked like they’d had the shit beaten out of them, and likely wondered if they were watching a horror movie.  
  
(They wouldn’t be wrong.)  
  
“Thanks,” Rook said quietly, casting a fleeting look at Joseph before directing it back at her bowl.   
  
“I am your Father,” Joseph said calmly, and Rook shuddered from the familiarity of the words. “And you are my children.”  
  
Hudson stabbed the spoon into the tabletop, leaving a significant dent in the wood and nearly giving Rook a heart-attack.  
  
“I had a dad,” She spat. “And I liked him just fine. So you can fuck off.”  
  
Rook nodded, still wary of Joseph and what he was capable of but emboldened by Hudson’s resistance. “What she said.”  
  
Joseph stared at them both, but said nothing.  
   
[---]  
   
Tonight, Joseph didn’t separate or cuff them.  
  
He let Rook and Hudson into the bedroom he’d had Hudson in, the one with the bunk-beds. “Good night, Deputies,” He’d said in that same easy, benign voice he’d used before. And then- to Rook’s surprise- he pulled a sort of grate down from the top of the doorway. It made sense: None of the rooms in the bunker, save for the bathroom and the workshop, seemed to have actual doors, so there had to be ways to seal off the other rooms.  
  
Once Joseph was gone, Hudson collapsed onto one of the beds and crumpled in on herself. “Rook,” She moaned, all of the defiance she’d showed Joseph gone, “Rook, Rook, _fuck_ , Rook.” Hudson let out a weak sob, and Rook dropped onto the bed beside her and hugged her as tightly as she dared. “Oh God, Rook, everything’s gone. You don’t just drop a dozen nukes on Montana and have everything else be fine and dandy. We can’t be the only ones affected. The whole country’s probably fucked. A _bunch_ of countries are probably fucked.”  
  
Rook pressed her nose into Hudson’s shoulder and didn’t respond. She hadn’t allowed herself to process reality just yet: Maybe it had just been them. Maybe some idiot had dropped a bunch of nukes on Montana on accident. Maybe it was just a matter of waiting until the government came knocking on the bunker door to evacuate them to a safer place.  
  
But Hudson’s theory held too much water.  
  
The whole country, the whole _world_ was probably fucked, and they were to be left at the mercy of Joseph Seed.  
  
They couldn’t very well leave. There was no telling if or when Pratt would be able to escape, and they couldn’t leave without him. Even if they did, where could they go? Rook knew a lot of people in Hope County had bunkers, but she couldn’t remember where they were off the top of her head. And there was no way they could stay out in whatever conditions the bombs had brought down on them.  
  
No, for now they were trapped.  
  
And as she curled up with Hudson in one of the bunks, the two of them cuddling together like a pair of scared children, a single coherent thought unified the thousand little pieces of grief that dominated her mind:  
_  
Did I do this?_  
   
[---]  
   
A few days later, Pratt woke properly.  
  
Joseph brought Hudson and Rook into the room, and a pronounced movement on the bed made Rook gasp. “Staci!” She and Hudson sat down awkwardly on the edge of the medical cot; Rook took his hand, and Hudson leaned over him.  
  
Pratt blinked slowly. His gaze wasn’t completely focused, but there was a spark of awareness in it. “Staci?” Hudson whispered, gently stroking his hair. Pratt’s gaze moved sluggishly between her and Rook, and finally something seemed to click: He squeezed Rook’s hand, while his other awkwardly came to rest on Hudson’s leg.  
  
“Oh… Hi,” He mumbled. “Hi. I… I… Mm.” Pratt squeezed his eyes shut, either in discomfort or frustration.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Rook asked.  
  
Pratt stared at Rook for a long moment. “Um…” He lifted his hand (which was shaking badly) off Hudson’s leg and put it to his head. “Uh…”  
  
“Your head?”  
  
“Yeah,” Pratt sighed, eyes slipping shut. Soon he was breathing steadily, eyelids twitching as he fell deeper into unconsciousness. Hudson sighed, taking his hand and squeezing it in her own before leaning down to kiss his cheek. Rook was a little surprised at the gesture: Either Hudson was emotional at Pratt’s recovery, or maybe they’d been a bit friendlier than she’d realized.  
  
“This is good,” Rook whispered, lightly squeezing Pratt’s hand. “He’s improved. He’ll get even better as time goes on.”  
  
Hudson nodded wearily. “I just can’t take any more.”  
  
She didn’t clarify- any more pain, any more death, any more stress- and she didn’t need to. Rook felt it too.  
  
As Joseph was leading them back to the bedroom, Hudson stepped in first and collapsed onto one of the bunks.  
  
Rook hesitated, glaringly aware of how closely Joseph was standing to her, a barrier to prevent her from running back into the hallway.  
  
“Thank you,” Rook murmured, not looking Joseph in the eye, “For taking care of him.”  
  
She squeezed her eyes shut when Joseph’s hand came to rest on her head.  
  
“Of course, my child.”  
   
[---]  
   
Joseph was not content to let them alone.  
  
He let Rook and Hudson stay in the same room, but did not leave the door unlocked or open. If they had to use the bathroom, they only did so one at a time with him as an escort; same with the shower, which was unfortunately positioned in the hallway and required that Joseph turn his back to them while they used it. After a few occasions even Hudson was grudgingly willing to admit that he’d kept his eyes on the wall and hadn’t snuck any glances at her- behold, a part of Joseph Seed that was reliably decent.  
  
“He might be the one cult leader that preaches about lust and actually isn’t getting any on the side,” Hudson grunted. “Glory hallelujah, it’s a _fucking_ miracle.”  
  
They did not have free roam of the bunker, and- curiously, since Rook would swear this room had had books and other items in it when she’d been down here with Dutch- had no means of entertaining themselves independently. Rook and Hudson had to talk or play games amongst themselves to pass the time.  
  
At least until Joseph came back.  
  
The sessions with him- Rook couldn’t call them conversations, since he did most of the talking- could be described as a twisted sort of Bible Study class, but with Joseph’s Word at the center of it. He preached and preached and preached, spouting a mixture of bible stories and anecdotes from his own personal life. Rook knew more about Joseph Seed and his family now than she would ever have cared to know.  
  
One story in particular recounted the time when Joseph had worked as an orderly in a mental hospital. He spoke with derision of the doctors there and how the patients were the true visionaries of society; and while Rook was more than inclined to believe that Joseph had worked in shitty facilities where the doctors were sanctimonious assholes that treated their patients like animals, she couldn’t help but consider that Joseph might not be the most reliable historian about everything that had occurred.  
  
“The self-declared religious prophet doesn’t like psychologists,” Hudson actually sneered out loud, “I am _shocked_.”  
  
Yeah, that was the blunter way of saying it.  
  
Joseph cocked his head to the side, looking at Hudson with an expression that didn’t suggest anger or malice or resentment. He simply stared at her for a moment, and then stood up and left the room.  
  
That night, and the next day, he left them in the room without food or water.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Hudson whispered when it became obvious what he was doing. “I’m sorry. I’m the one who pissed him off. He should be taking it out on me and not you.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Rook sighed, leaning her head on Hudson’s shoulder.  
  
The message was clear:  
  
Joseph was not above punishing both of them for a transgression committed only by one of them.   
  
He had all the power, and he was willing to use it.  
   
[---]  
   
Pratt’s health increased in spurts.  
  
He progressively became more coherent, which allowed him to get out of bed more without assistance. Curiously, his body seemed to be fine, save for the various minor injuries received in the crash and the effect of being strictly bedbound for a few weeks. His coordination, balance, fine motor skills- all seemed to be normal, totally unimpaired.  
  
But Pratt’s ability to speak didn’t seem to be improving much.  
  
“I, uh… I have, uh…” He heaved a slow, deep breath and shook his head. After a minute, when the words didn’t come, Pratt leaned over and put his head in his hands.  
  
“It’s okay,” Rook said quietly. “Don’t rush it.”  
  
“It could be some form of aphasia,” Joseph remarked, leaning against the wall and observing (as he always did; he rarely inserted himself into the Deputies’ personal conversations). “I saw it in the hospital: The poor souls were perfectly mentally sound, but incapable by some incorrect wiring in their brains to express themselves in a way that could be understood.”  
  
Rook saw Hudson almost literally, physically biting her tongue, probably to hold back a scathing response. The older Deputy still obviously had a raging, burning hatred for Joseph and was only holding back out of concern that Rook would be punished for her resistance. Hudson was probably also afraid, as was Rook, that those group punishments might start applying to Pratt now that he was well-enough to move around. Joseph was at a distinct disadvantage; they outnumbered him three to one.  
  
Better not to provoke him into showing how he intended to deal with this problem.  
  
Not when they lived in a post-apocalyptic world, not when the land outside was entirely uninhabitable and the choices were ‘live with Joseph or die outside’.  
  
And quietly, privately, never to be admitted to Hudson or Pratt, Rook was starting to wonder if maybe Joseph was right. In the dark nights and silent spaces where she had nothing else to occupy her, she wondered about how everything had happened and whether or not she had really broken any seal.  
  
She wondered if it really _was_ her fault.  
   
[---]  
   
Rook’s health started to decline.  
  
Some of the injuries she’d gotten from the crash had healed, or started to- primarily the bruises and smaller cuts. But some of the larger cuts weren’t healing quite so well, and she was certain one of the ones on her thigh was getting infected.  
  
“Rook?”  
  
Rook’s head snapped up, blinking furiously to try and force herself awake. “Hm?” Hudson, Pratt, and Joseph were all staring at her. She’d started to nod off, ignoring the food on her plate as her head had tipped towards the table. Meals tended to be quiet- Pratt avoided talking much as a rule, Hudson wasn’t very talkative around Joseph, and mealtimes were perhaps the only time of day when Joseph managed to keep his mouth shut for an extended period of time.  
  
“You alright?” Pratt asked.  
  
Rook nodded. “Fine. Tired.” She picked up her fork and stabbed a limp previously-canned tomato and forced it down her throat. The gash on her thigh was pulsing ominously, and Rook made a note to check it later before she went to bed.  
  
By the time dinner was over, she’d forgotten it completely. Rook fell into bed and was asleep within minutes.  
  
As it was, her suspicions were confirmed when she woke up in the middle of (what she assumed) was the night with Hudson’s palm pressed to her forehead. “Aw, Rook,” She whispered. “You okay?”  
  
Rook grunted, pressing closer to Hudson and squeezing her eyes shut.  
  
At some point, she drifted back off into unconsciousness.  
   
[---]  
   
Rook slept.  
  
In her mind, she saw Hope County in all its glory, Montana countryside with a brilliant landscape. She ambled down the road, dazed and vaguely disconnected in that way people were in dreams.  
  
Boomer trotted along ahead of her, and Rook smiled. “Boomer!” She called. “Here, boy!” The dog turned and charged towards her, tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth-  
**_  
BOOM._**  
  
A flash of light blinded her, and Rook fell to the ground. Gusts of smoke and dust whipped around her head, heat scorched her skin, and when she opened her eyes all she could see was ash and fire and a mushroom cloud lingering in the distance.  
  
And then she saw the bodies.  
  
Nick and Kim and baby Carmina were lifeless in a heap.  
  
Rook tripped over someone, and she recognized Pastor Jerome’s distinctive religious habit.  
  
Wheaty was slung across Tammy, who stared lifelessly at the sky.  
  
Dutch was face-down, and Whitehorse was bloodied and motionless nearby.  
  
Rook let out a sob as the bodies multiplied, Tracey and Mary May and Hurk and Adelaide and Jess and there were just so many people dead, so many bodies, and they were all here and dead because she couldn’t walk away, because the seals had been broken and it was all her fault.  
  
“Remember,” Joseph’s voice whispered in her ear, “God is watching.”  
**  
BANGBANGBANG.**  
  
(Were those gunshots?)  
  
“Joseph!”  
  
(What? Was that Hudson?)  
**  
BANGBANGBANG.**  
  
“ _Joseph!_ ”  
**  
BANGBANGBANG.**  
  
“Rook? You awake?”  
  
She was.  
  
Rook’s eyelids fluttered, momentarily overcome with alertness. She tried to focus, but the room around her was dim and blurry. “Hm?”  
  
Pratt was kneeling beside her, a hand on her arm. “You alright?”  
**_  
BANG. BANG._**  
  
“God _damn_ it Joseph, if you’re _**fucking**_ ignoring me I swear I’m gonna ram my foot _right up your_ -!” Hudson’s voice barked from near the door.  
  
“Hey, Rook.” Rook dragged her gaze back to Pratt- it was surprisingly difficult. “Can you, hm… Uh- talk to me? Say anything? Know, uh… Know where you are?”  
  
Rook’s brain had been completely disconnected from her mouth. That rush of clarity she’d had disappeared. _Am I sick? Staci sounds like a doctor. Is he a doctor? No, he’s a cop- he **trained** as a paramedic for a while. Joey told me that. Am I in a hospital? No, I’m in the bunker, the world ended and Dutch is dead and Whitehorse is dead and Burke and Virgil and Eli and probably everyone else too-_  
  
Rook started to cry, a weak and wheezy sound, as tears started to leak from her eyes. “It’s okay,” Pratt whispered, squeezing her arm. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”  
  
She passed out again as the grate over the door was raised.  
   
[---]  
   
Eventually, Rook woke up again.  
  
She was in the infirmary now, on the bed closest to the door, and there was an IV in her arm. Everything felt too hot, but she wasn’t as miserable as she’d felt when she’d last been awake. Rook turned to her left, and saw Hudson and Pratt in the next bed: Pratt’s arms were wrapped around Hudson’s waist, and they were both fast asleep. To her right, Joseph was sitting in a chair right beside Rook’s bed.  
  
“Are you awake?” He whispered.  
  
Rook blinked. “Yeah,” She croaked.  
  
“How do you feel?”  
  
“Hot.”  
  
Joseph smiled faintly. “You have a fever. One of the lacerations on your thigh became infected. It seems to be doing better now.”  
  
Rook shifted her leg, and only felt a slight burn when the skin and muscle was stressed. “That’s good.”  
  
“It is. But you should keep resting.”  
  
Rook nodded lightly, settling back into the cot. Joseph bowed his head, threaded his rosary through his fingers and- she assumed- started praying. She watched for a while, unable and unwilling to go back to sleep. “Joseph?”  
  
Joseph raised his head. “Yes, Deputy Rook?”  
  
Her eyes welled with tears. “Do you really think it was my fault? The bombs, the Collapse, all of it?”  
  
Joseph was silent for a moment, blue eyes boring into hers. He fingered his rosary contemplatively before he answered. “I believe that everything works according to God’s plan,” He said finally, a curiously diplomatic response from a man who had looked her in the eye at his church and said “the world is on fire and it’s your fault”. Was Joseph perhaps trying to spare her feelings?  
  
Rook didn’t want that.  
  
She wanted the truth.  
  
“And what _is_ God’s plan?” She asked.  
  
Joseph stared at her again, almost curiously now. “I wasn’t under the impression you were receptive.”  
  
“It’s never stopped you from talking before.”  
  
Joseph’s lip curled up in a thin smile. “There’s no point in truly _talking_ if I’m not going to be listened to.”  
  
This seemed to be a contradictory point- he waxed on and on about religion all the time, not seeming to care if the deputies were paying attention- but Rook was too fevered and exhausted to analyze it too closely.  
  
Besides, she wanted an answer.  
  
A _real_ one.  
  
“Alright,” Rook whispered, tone almost defeated even though it wasn’t quite what she felt. “Alright. I’ll listen.”  
  
Joseph smiled.


	2. HUNTER

Pratt thought it couldn’t get any worse after Jacob.  
  
The universe had gleefully, maliciously swooped in to prove him wrong.  
  
No matter how much time passed, Pratt still couldn’t talk right. Somewhere in the complicated neurological process of making thoughts into speech, things got tangled for him. It took a lot of effort to get all the right words out without spontaneously losing one he’d been about to say (what was that word, that word that meant ‘not happy’? Oh, right _sad,_ and who the fuck forgot the word _sad?_ ). Writing was easier, maybe because he could look at the words in order and recite them back to himself to help himself along, but paper was scarce and they wanted to conserve it for special things.  
  
And the almost hilariously aggravating thing was, it seemed like it was _just_ his speech and a bit of his short-term memory that had taken a hit. Pratt’s memory had been foggy after the crash, and it wasn’t incredibly reliable now- but for the most part he didn’t seem to be missing anything major from before, remembered who he was and how he’d gotten to where he was now. His coordination was fine, his vision and hearing were fine, his ability to read was fine, his ability to eat, sleep, and walk was fine.  
  
It was just when he spoke that things got rough.  
  
Frankly, it was cruel: It would have been easier if he could have kept his speech, but couldn’t remember anything between the helicopter crash and now.  
  
If all the shit Jacob Seed had done could have been purged from his mind by way of a serious blow to the head, Pratt’s life would only have been better for it. If he could forget the dream-he-wasn’t-even-sure-was-a-dream about the deer, if he could forget the things he’d likely done to other brainwashed captives under the influence of the music box, it would only reduce his anxiety and self-hatred and guilt.  
  
Of course the crash wasn’t kind enough to wipe those memories from him.  
  
Apparently the universe _was_ governed by Joseph Seed’s God, and the whole apocalypse bit had proven that it was not a kind God at all.  
  
For a while after waking up, he passed through his days with a sort of hazy unawareness of what was going on around him, like he was half-asleep and not really _registering_ anything. Whitehorse was dead, Dutch Roosevelt was dead and this was his bunker they were in, Joseph had dragged them all to it and now they were expected to stay underground for the next seven years- it all sunk in very, _very_ slowly, and it was probably the slowness that kept Pratt from completely freaking out.  
  
He did not scream.  
  
He did not weep.  
  
He did not break down in some spectacular display of grief.  
  
Occasionally some tears came- quiet and mild, they were surprisingly easy to banish considering the circumstances. It felt like Pratt was wading through a knee-deep pool of pure anxiety: He could move, he could breathe, and he could even sit down for a while without being overcome by it. But it was always _there_ , always very easy to find if he needed to check on it, and it wasn’t going away.  
  
He just needed to make sure he didn’t lie down and let it consume him.  
  
[---]  
  
Hudson was worried about Rook.  
  
For the most part they had free reign of the bunker now, and Rook was using that freedom to spend a lot of time with Joseph; often behind closed doors, words whispered and cut off when Hudson or Pratt approached. To be fair, given their limited space it was kind of difficult to avoid spending time with him, but the frequency of these occasions and the nervous way Rook looked at them afterwards was becoming suspect. Rook wasn’t eating as much as she should have been either, or sleeping; and being that she wasn’t the greatest liar in the world, it was somewhat plain that she appeared to be guilty about something.  
  
And there was really only one thing she could be guilty about down here.  
  
“He’s getting to her,” Hudson growled, as they sat at the kitchen table.  
  
Seated across from her, Pratt nodded gently. No point in arguing: Hudson was completely right on this one.  
  
“This will only end badly.”  
  
Pratt hesitated this time. He hadn’t said as much- he and Hudson had had limited contact between the helicopter crash and coming to the bunker- but he’d be lying if he’d said he was as hostile towards Joseph and his beliefs as he’d once been. It didn’t mean he was going to start shooting anyone who refused to join Eden’s gate, though. He supposed Hudson had a point, though: Rook’s interest had a curiously intense feel to it. So he nodded his agreement again (it was becoming a habit; a simple head motion didn’t require much struggle or thought).  
  
“We need to do something about this.”  
  
Pratt did not nod.  
  
Hudson was stubborn. She’d been that way as long as Pratt had known her, and he had always admired her for it. To date, the only thing that had ever broken that stubbornness was actual, _literal_ physical torture: So if Joseph thought that Hudson was going to warm up to him, or willingly submit to him with anything less than that, then the guy was in for a wild ride.  
  
Hudson got up from the table, a noticeably aggressive air to her. She started towards the door and Pratt sprung out of his seat, grabbing her by the bicep and shook his head. “Would you rather, um…” He shut his eyes, waited for the word to surface. “… _Alienate_ her? Because that’s what’ll happen if you start- start trouble with her.” He waved his hand, a general ‘you know what I mean’ gesture.  
  
“She’s being fucking brainwashed! She doesn’t have a choice!” Hudson hissed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.  
  
Pratt rubbed her arm. “I know. But she, uh… Rook thinks she does.”  
  
“But it’s not _Rook_ ,” Hudson persisted, hands shaking as she wiped her eyes. “It’s not _her_ anymore. She’s not the same.”  
  
“Neither am I.” Never had he said anything so quickly and clearly since the crash.  
  
“It’s not the same thing,” Hudson said. “You just took a hit to the head. You’re still the same on the inside.”  
  
Pratt burst out laughing, startling Hudson and himself both.  
  
“No,” he said, shaking his head as his eyes started to burn, remembering Jacob and the music box and the countless bodies and the endless, constant stench of death. Pratt wrapped an arm around Hudson’s waist and hugged her, face pressing into her shoulder. “No, no, no.”  
  
He didn’t have any trouble getting that word out.  
   
[---]  
   
‘ _Only You_ ’ was the soundtrack to Pratt’s nightmares.  
  
Thank God there wasn’t much in the bunker colored red- Pratt was half-afraid the sight of it would send him back into the conditioning, that he would turn on Hudson and Rook like a bull that’d just had a cape waved in front of its face.  
  
Of course, maybe he wouldn’t: Maybe the conditioning had worn off by now. Pratt had noticed that it had worn down on a few occasions- notably, the ones where Rook’s switch had been flipped right in front of him. His head had hurt, his mind had swam, but he hadn’t succumbed the way she had, fresh out of the chair.  
  
Pratt had wondered, even then, why Jacob wasn’t trying to condition him more aggressively. He hadn’t wanted to ask- he was afraid it would call it to Jacob’s attention. At the same time, he’d known that Jacob hadn’t simply _forgotten_ about brainwashing him. He must have had a purpose for leaving Pratt’s mind (relatively) untouched for the time-being.  
  
“You’re weak,” The eldest Seed had remarked, those piercing eyes cutting Pratt to the bone. “And the weak have their purpose.”  
  
Pratt did not have it in him to deny it now: Jacob was right. He _was_ weak.  
_  
I must be strong,_ Pratt thought, as red (real? hallucinated?) tickled the edge of his vision. _I must be strong. Cull the herd. Cull the-_  
  
He grit his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut.  
  
Far worse than being totally brainwashed was hovering in the in-between- clear-eyed enough to recognize the madness in his thoughts, but still brainwashed just enough that he thought those terrible things anyway, unable to shake them.  
_  
I am not culling the herd._  
_  
I’m **not.**_  
_  
The weak do not deserve to be culled._  
  
Pratt sighed, uncertainty chewing at him like a rabid dog.  
_  
But still, I should be strong._  
_  
I am weak._  
_  
And if I can’t be strong, I have to know my purpose._  
  
But how could he know what that was? How could he know what purpose Jacob had planned for him, beyond being bait for Rook?  
_  
What is my purpose?_  
   
[---]  
  
A blood-curdling scream woke them up one night.  
  
Pratt shot up, nearly rolling off the couch he’d taken to sleeping on. Hudson was already up: “Where’s Rook?” She asked, voice tight with panic.  
  
Another scream echoed through the bunker.  
  
Hudson and Pratt jumped up and ran for the door.  
  
(It wouldn’t occur to them until later that the door had been left open- and not by Joseph, who had definitely closed it earlier.)  
  
They found Rook on her knees on the floor of Dutch’s war room. Joseph had since converted it into his own space, vandalizing the walls with the Eden’s Gate cross and scribbling his word on spare paper. Joseph himself was kneeling beside Rook, a hand on her shoulder as she coughed and gagged; each time she did, blood splattered onto the metal floor.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Hudson barked, mistaking Joseph’s attention for aggression. “Get off her!” She lunged at him, but Pratt was too focused on Rook to care at the moment.  
  
There had been a time so very, very long ago when Pratt had trained as a paramedic, dropping that particular career-path when he’d gotten it into his head that cops got laid more. But the training had been comprehensive enough that he’d been an appealing employee to Whitehorse, who- in a large, rural area like Hope County- could stand to have a cop that had medical training as well. Now more than ever Pratt was glad for it, because at least it gave him a decent chance of being able to help.  
  
Rook was half-conscious, wheezing a little as she breathed. When Pratt pressed his fingers to her throat she rallied a little, limply trying to push him away. There was definitely a pulse, and it was a little too fast but it was steady enough, so she was definitely alive… But there was blood flecked around her mouth, like she’d screamed herself so raw that the skin of her throat had worn down and torn.  
  
That was actually a pretty good possibility, given the way she’d been screaming.  
  
“Come on, Rook, come on,” He urged her, looping her arm around his neck and pulling her too her feet. He led her out of the war room and to the infirmary, setting her down on one of the beds. “Hey, Rook, can you sit up? Can you look at me?”  
  
She couldn’t. Rook had either passed out, or worked herself into such a state that she couldn’t respond. Pratt sighed and fumbled around the drawers until he found a flashlight; he held Rook’s mouth open and did his best to look down her throat. There was (relatively speaking) a little blood, not too much- most of it she’d probably coughed up already- but Pratt didn’t have the sort of training or expertise that could allow him to accurate diagnose what had happened. Probably weren’t many who could, now that the end of the fucking world had come.  
  
Pratt coaxed Rook onto her side and put a towel under her head, so the blood and saliva and anything else that came out of her mouth would drain rather than choking her. He didn’t intend to leave her alone for long: Pratt just needed to sort out what the hell had happened with Joseph.  
  
Preferably before Hudson killed him.  
  
When he got back to the war room, Joseph and Hudson weren’t tussling anymore: Now they were yelling at one another, though they stopped when Pratt came in. “Is she alright?” Joseph asked.  
  
“Hard to tell,” Pratt said evenly. “She’s not dead, if that’s what you mean. What happened?”  
  
“Deputy Rook had a breakthrough regarding God’s plan,” Joseph said calmly- calmly enough to make the hairs on the back of Pratt’s neck stand up.  
  
“And what the hell do you mean by _that?_ ” Hudson snapped.  
  
“What I mean,” Joseph said as Pratt paced over to where Rook had been kneeling, “Is that she’s finally come to terms with her role in the Collapse and is seeking atonement from God.”  
  
Pratt only heard half of that.  
  
Most of his attention had been affixed on the scrawled message on the papers in front of him:  
  
**_MY FAULT MY FAULT MY FAULT ALL MY FAULT_**  
  
_Oh no. Oh **no**_.  
  
Pratt held up one of the papers for Hudson to see.  
  
What followed was a long, deadly silence.  
  
“Did you tell her,” Hudson whispered, eyes flicking from the paper to Joseph and fixing him with a cold, piercing look, “That the bombs were _her_ fault?”  
  
Joseph cocked his head.  
  
_Oh no,_ Pratt thought again, rising to his feet and starting towards Hudson.  
  
“I simply told her God’s truth.”  
  
It was a good thing Pratt’s reflexes were as good as they’d been pre-crash, otherwise Hudson would have jumped on Joseph and mauled him like a fucking cougar. “ _You motherfucking **psychopath!**_ ” She roared as Pratt caught her mid-lunge and struggled to drag her from the room. The only place he could think to bring her was the workshop, which had a traditional door with a lock, so Pratt forced Hudson in there as she kicked and screamed and swore at Joseph with a deep, wild venom that would have impressed Tammy Barnes.  
  
“ _Joeyyou’rehurtingme!_ ”  
  
It was like he’d said the magic words; Hudson backed off, though she eyed the door like she planned on pushing past him and going for Joseph’s throat again. Pratt stood in front of it to make sure she didn’t. “Sorry,” She panted, chest heaving. The button-down flannel she was wearing wasn’t buttoned all the way up, and she wasn’t wearing another shirt beneath it- just a bra. Pratt’s cheeks colored a little, and he averted his eyes before she could notice him looking. “Didn’t mean to hurt you. Just _him_.”  
  
“No fucking shit,” Pratt snapped. “Calm down.”  
  
“ _Calm down?_ Rook just ripped her throat out _screaming_ because that psychopath convinced her she caused the apocalypse, but you want me to-?”  
  
“Yeah, Joey! I do!” Pratt dragged his fingers through his hair. “But what do…” He shook his head. “What, ah, what do you want to do? Kill him?”  
  
Hudson gave him a strange look. “Uh, yes. Yes, Staci, I would like to kill the bastard.”  
  
“And Rook?”  
  
“What about her?”  
  
“How will she take it?”  
  
Hudson was silent.  
  
“We can’t, Joey. Rook will… Freak out. Get mad. At _us_.” He sighed. “She thinks… She thinks she… Uh… Deserves this.”  
  
_But she doesn’t_.  
  
Neither of them said it out loud; they both knew it.  
  
[---]  
  
Rook had cracked.  
  
Rook had really and truly _cracked._  
  
Pratt didn’t think of it in judgmental terms- that would be hypocritical, considering the state he’d been in after she’d yanked him from Jacob’s bunker- but he couldn’t really describe it in any other way. Joseph had finally succeeded in cracking Rook’s skull and pouring his particular brand of liquid crazy into her brain.  
  
Rook, it seemed, had permanently damaged her vocal chords, and maybe other parts of her throat as well. Such things were more common than people realized (or had realized, pre-Collapse); but vocal chord damage could be fairly negligible in the days of specialists and therapists that could help repair injuries with exercises and surgery.  
  
But that simply wasn’t feasible anymore, and it seemed that Rook’s vocal chords were damaged enough that she couldn’t get much of anything but a pained rasp or a few weak syllables out of her wrecked throat.  
  
Great, so now _two_ of them couldn’t talk right.  
  
But in many ways, it was Rook’s new inability to speak that made her abrupt change in behavior so eerie: She couldn’t sing, but it sent a shiver down Pratt’s spine when he heard her cheerily humming (as best she could, even that didn’t sound right) familiar tunes he’d heard so many times over the loudspeakers at the Veteran’s Center. ‘Keep Your Rifle by Your Side’, ‘Help Me, Faith’, and ‘Now He’s Our Father’ were easily recognizable. And Rook hummed them all with an almost glazed, unnaturally peaceful expression on her face, without too much depth to her gaze.  
  
This was usually the expression she was wearing when she was listening to Joseph preach. Hudson didn’t have the stomach for it- indeed, she’d taken to avoiding Joseph like the plague, probably so she didn’t snap and try to murder him again- but Pratt sometimes listened in (obviously or otherwise) on these sermons to find out exactly what it was that Rook was being told. Most of it was benign enough, and Pratt didn’t hear any sort of blame from Joseph’s side: But then, Rook had already come to terms with the fact that she’d supposedly kick-started the apocalypse, so maybe he’d moved onto subjects he’d deemed more productive for her salvation.  
  
When Rook _didn’t_ have that vacant, mindlessly calm expression on her face, when her eyes were clear and she seemed more connected to her surroundings, any semblance of happiness or peace evaporated. She drew in on herself and fidgeted, twisting her ponytail and playing with her hands and scratching her arms and a dozen other nervous little behaviors that just reinforced Pratt’s belief that she’d had some sort of massive mental breakdown and was drowning in anxiety in her more lucid moments.  
  
“Stop,” He said one day, pulling her hands off her ponytail and holding up several strands of blonde hair she hadn’t even noticed had come out during her fidgeting. “Stop, Rook. Okay?”  
  
“ _Yah_ ,” Rook rasped, sliding her hands between her thighs and squeezing them together, trapping them there. A show of cooperation that Pratt suspected would last as long as he was watching, no more, no less.  
  
He couldn’t blame her.  
  
In fact, at this point he was just grateful she wasn’t doing anything worse to herself. As unstable as Rook had become, and as unable as he was to properly evaluate her state of mind, Pratt was concerned that she might get it into her head that she needed to atone for the Collapse via self-harm or suicide.  
  
_That will not happen,_ Pratt decided, with a dark and solid confidence worthy of Jacob overtaking him as the old mantra set in. _I will not **let** that happen. Rook is weak, I am strong. We must be strong. I will be strong. The weak-_  
  
Pratt squeezed his eyes shut, flexed his hands and tried to control the conditioned reaction before it could come.  
  
- _the weak will be protected. Rook is family. I’ll be strong for her._  
  
_For all of them._  
  
[---]  
  
“Deputy Pratt.”  
  
“Joseph.”  
  
Pratt kept his eyes on his book instead of looking up. While he lacked Hudson’s rage where Joseph was concerned, he didn’t want to give the impression of friendliness: Joseph may have been _right_ about the Collapse, and Jacob may have been _right_ about them needing to be strong, but Pratt had had just enough distance from the conditioning and the torture to know things weren’t as black and white as Joseph Seed would have them believe. Just enough distance to be _pissed_ about what he’d endured under Jacob, and Hudson under John, and Rook under-  
  
-well, all of them.  
  
But Joseph didn’t leave when Pratt failed to look at him, and so that meant he wanted to talk.  
  
Friendliness wasn’t going to happen, but Pratt did at least have to be _civil_ with Joseph if they were going to be sharing this bunker for the next few years.  
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
Joseph cocked his head. “I was wondering what your perspective on my Word is.”  
  
Well, this had come out of- okay, maybe not _nowhere_ , Pratt had tried to be subtle when he was spying on Joseph’s sessions with Rook. Still, it was surprising, and Pratt had to weigh his words even more carefully than usual before answering. “Don’t have one.” He was finding that short, simple sentences were the easiest.  
  
Joseph smiled. “Everyone has an opinion on something, negative or positive. Based on what you said in the truck on our way here, I was curious to see if you were receptive- or, perhaps, if you shared Jacob’s opinion.”  
  
“What’s his opinion?”  
  
“That I was full of shit.”  
  
Pratt’s eyes widened. Joseph’s use of profanity was more shocking than Jacob’s views on Joseph’s prophecies; he _had_ gotten some insight into Jacob’s way of thinking when he was his prisoner. The word “God” had crossed Jacob’s lips only a small handful of times, and even then, it was usually as a curse. What surprised him more than anything was that Jacob had been upfront about this with Joseph. “Oh.”  
  
Joseph chuckled. “No, Jacob was never terribly concerned with the religious aspects of Eden’s Gate. But he was always supportive of the idea that some sort of Collapse was coming, and that we must be prepared for it when it does. He never doubted that everything we knew of the world would come crashing down eventually.”  
  
Yes, yes, that did sound like Jacob.  
  
“You said that I was right,” Joseph remarked. “In the truck.”  
  
Pratt was quiet.  
_  
I did._  
_  
And he was._  
  
This made Rook’s conversion so much more terrifying to him, because she had so little reason to see- well, _reason_ in Joseph’s Word. But Pratt had been brainwashed and beaten and starved, and come out with so many confusing feelings and beliefs. Before the Collapse he’d known he’d probably spend years with a therapist trying to untangle them, probably after losing his job.  
  
And then the Collapse had come.  
  
And Joseph had been _right._  
  
And finally- though the thought was darkly laughable- Pratt found himself agreeing with Jacob Seed:  
  
Joseph was probably not a prophet.  
  
Jacob had seen the end coming too, even without claiming visions from God.  
  
But he knew how to survive in the hellscape they would eventually have to live in, and that was better than nothing. Jacob had been strong, and he had trusted Joseph to lead Eden’s Gate to safety and strength.  
  
So for now, Pratt would cautiously, warily, look to him for cues.  
  
For a purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Thought I'd put this here already, but it looks like I forgot)
> 
> The idea that Rook's muteness in New Dawn comes from screaming themselves hoarse came [from nick-rye-the-pilot-guy on tumblr.](https://inmh01.tumblr.com/post/183159230144/theory-time-joseph-cut-out-rooks-tongue-tracey)


	3. GUARDIAN

Hudson spent most of her days screaming internally now.  
  
If you’d asked her beforehand, ‘what is literally the _last_ place on earth you’d want to spend seven years straight’, Hudson would have immediately unequivocally responded with ‘a goddamn bunker.’  
  
It would have been bad even if she’d been with just Rook and Pratt. But Joseph’s presence ramped up the anxiety: That first night when he’d come into the room she’d screamed, less because she was afraid of what he’d do and more because all Hudson could think of was John’s bunker and Joseph’s indifference to hers and the other prisoners’ pleas for mercy. Though he was generally benign in his conduct (if not utterly _fucking_ annoying) Hudson could not ( _would_ not) see him as anything but a threat.  
  
Especially not after what he’d done to Rook.  
  
The three of them still slept in the bigger bedroom, Hudson and Rook in a bunk and Pratt on the couch. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be in a bed?” Hudson had asked.  
  
Pratt had shrugged. “No difference.” He tended to respond with short, simple answers now, when he could get away with it. It seemed to reduce the amount of time he had to spend grasping for words.  
  
Despite her newfound faith in Joseph, Rook still often shared a bunk with Hudson. She never said- never _had_ said, when she could still speak- outright, but Hudson suspected that it was to stave off the nightmares, or at least reduce them. She didn’t mind: It was nice to have Rook nearby, a tangible reminder that she was safe and nearby.  
  
It was comforting to have them close, her friends and the last of anyone she could consider family in this ruined goddamn world.  
  
[---]  
  
Hudson was waging both low and high-key war against Joseph Seed.  
  
Not so much different than what she’d been doing for the last few years of her life- she just had to do it a little differently now.  
  
Once, she walked in on Rook and Joseph during one of his personalized late-night religious sermons. “There is none other but God that can judge sin, Ava-”  
  
It was like someone had jabbed Hudson with a cattle-prod: Nobody called Rook by her first name. Rook was her surname, and as it was the root of the word ‘Rookie’ it had also become a nickname for her. Even now that they were all reliably on a first-name basis with one another, Hudson and Pratt still called her Rook as a matter of habit and comfort. For Joseph to be calling her by her first name invoked a petty sort of rage in Hudson that made her want to rip that wannabe-Bible out of his hands and beat him over the head with it.  
  
For now, she schooled her tone into something not-overtly hostile. “Rook?”  
  
Rook turned, rasped inquiringly.  
  
“You want to come to bed?”  
  
“Ava and I were-”  
  
“I wasn’t asking you,” Hudson snapped.  
  
Rook glanced between them. Hudson sensed conflict- Rook didn’t want to put her off, but she didn’t want to leave Joseph. So Hudson put her puppy-dog eyes on and held out a hand.  
  
“Rook, come on, come to bed with me. Please?”  
  
Rook glanced towards Joseph. _You don’t need his permission!_ Hudson wanted to yell.  
  
“It’s fine, Ava. We can continue tomorrow.”  
  
And so Rook went to bed with Hudson that night, curling up beside her and hugging her close. Like nothing had changed.  
  
Hudson hugged her back and tried to pretend the same.  
  
Joseph had submitted in that battle; but he was constantly waging little attacks. For instance, though he’d stopped forcing them all to listen to his warped little Bible-study sessions, he now seemed to be interested in tempting them (especially Hudson) to come of their own free will.  
  
“Yeah,” Pratt mumbled over dinner one night. “Sure.”  
  
That was a little surprising; but Hudson couldn’t blame him, not when everything else in this bunker was so goddamn dull.  
  
“Deputy Hudson?”  
  
“No thank you.” The words were polite, but Hudson made sure there was enough venom in the tone to convey her intentions.  
  
Joseph’s expression was damnably calm. “Why not, Deputy?”  
  
“I’m on my period,” Hudson remarked flatly.  
  
She’d been hoping it might take Joseph off-guard, fluster him a bit; it didn’t. Pratt, on the other hand, started choking and Rook had to smack him on the back a few times before he could breathe again. “Perhaps next time,” Joseph said, completely unfazed.  
  
Hudson stabbed her food with her fork and didn’t respond.  
  
God, what she wouldn’t give for there to be no ‘next time’.  
  
[---]  
  
As far as she was concerned, Hudson had failed.  
  
Apocalypse (“Collapse”) or not, Rook was her partner. Hudson had failed to protect Danny, failed to have his back when he’d needed her- whether it was logical or not, whether she’d hold someone else to the same standard that she held herself (she wouldn’t), was irrelevant. Hudson had viewed it as a failure and sworn that it would never happen again.  
  
When Rook had rescued her from the bunker, she’d been deliriously relieved: Rook could handle herself just fine, Hudson thought. She didn’t need to be protected; she’d fought her way through hordes of Peggies and killed John Seed himself. That was a greater testament to Rook’s capabilities than anything else. Hudson had allowed herself to think that Rook would be fine.  
  
And Hudson had been wrong.  
  
Now Rook had been taken into Joseph’s mad ideology, and Hudson hadn’t seen it until it was too late. Logically, Hudson strained to think of a way she could have stopped this from happening: The seeds had been planted right from the start, with Joseph’s insistence that the attempted arrest was the opening of the seals (or whatever; Hudson did her best to tune out his ramblings). The apocalypse coming to pass was like a rock cracking a windshield: Not enough to completely break it, but the whole thing was just so weak and susceptible to being shattered with only a few more hits.  
  
And Rook had shattered. While she still had many elements of her old self, it was undeniable that she had changed after she’d accepted Joseph- _fucking_ -Seed as her prophet, her leader, her lord and savior.  
  
Rook was a nice kid. And Hudson knew that even the possibility of having a role in how things had happened was breaking her heart: So many people had died, friends and family, without a single chance to say goodbye. They’d come to the point of victory against the cult only to have the Collapse render it all useless.  
  
Pratt was right: Rook thought it was her fault.  
  
And it was Joseph that had told her that possibility was there.  
  
No- he’d _insisted_ it was her fault, that she’d “broken the seals”.  
  
Hudson didn’t buy it, and never would. The closest she would ever come to acknowledging any of this bullshit would be to, _maybe_ , cop to the idea that Joseph had some sort of freaky ability to predict the future. But beyond that, he was just another lunatic screaming about God.  
  
And now he’d broken Rook’s brain.  
  
Hudson hated him, and didn’t see that changing anytime soon.  
  
[---]  
  
This bunker was even smaller than John’s.  
  
It was messing with Hudson pretty badly.  
  
Distracting herself was the best way to deal with it, more often than not. But sometimes it couldn’t be avoided: Her lungs would grow tight, her vision would go blurry, and she would imagine being stuck in this _goddamn_ bunker until the end of time, until she died, unable to escape because the world had Collapsed and covered the door, trapping them inside, never to be found-  
  
Hudson tried to lock herself in the bathroom or the workroom when the panic attacks came: They were the only places she could go where no one would walk in on her. Rook and Joseph knew very little, to her knowledge- but Pratt had a much better idea as to what she was dealing with.  
  
“Find, um…” Pratt squeezed his eyes shut, thinking. He lightly whacked the side of his fist against the wall. Sitting on the bathroom floor, Hudson was content to let him figure out what he wanted to say: Not being able to breathe properly for minutes on end was exhausting. “Find, uh… Find a smaller space to go to.”  
  
Hudson laughed, skeptical. “A _smaller_ space?”  
  
“Mm. Like this.” He tapped the wall again. “Or under a bed, a container…” Pratt hesitated again. “ _Right!_ Uh, because then when you come out of them, the bunker will seem bigger by comparison. That’s it.”  
  
It did seem to make some sense. “Yeah, okay, I’ll try it.”  
  
And Hudson did try, really she did, but there was only so much one could do when trapped in a fucking bunker and by the very _real_ fear that they would be stuck inside even once Joseph said it was safe to leave: The level of destruction they’d faced led to the very real possibility that there was debris covering the door, debris that would prevent them from getting outside.  
  
Well, fortunately, even Pratt thought the bathroom was a good idea- so Hudson went back to that.  
  
She spent a solid fifteen minutes on the floor. The bathroom was small, and she had to keep her knees drawn up to fit, but it worked. Pratt’s logic made more and more sense as time went on: This was a place Hudson could go to voluntarily, a willing confinement that gave her a measure of control back. It made tolerating the confines of the bunker a little easier.  
  
Most of the time, anyway.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
“ _Jesus!_ ” Hudson slapped a hand over her heart. Joseph had been standing beside the bathroom door as she’d emerged, not readily visible. “Where did you come from?”  
  
“I was waiting for you to finish in the bathroom. Are you claustrophobic, Deputy Hudson?”  
  
Hudson sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “I _wasn’t_ ,” She said through clenched teeth, “Until your brother locked me in his bunker and tortured me for a couple of weeks.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
Hudson’s temper flared again. “Is that _really_ all you have to say?” She turned and went to walk away.  
  
“Your temper,” Joseph said pensively, “Reminds me so very much of John’s.”  
  
Hudson whirled around and slapped him across the face.  
  
“ _Fuck you!_ ” She spat. “ _Fuck_ you! Your brother fucking kidnapped and tortured innocent people, and when they finally cracked and confessed their ‘sins’ to him, he carved them onto their chests and then _cut the fucking skin off!_ He had the corpses of the people who died at his hand hanging from the ceiling of his goddamn torture chamber! So _fuck you_ for comparing me to him, you fucking psychopath!”  
  
A small bead of blood appeared on Joseph’s lip; the slap had probably pressed the skin into one of his teeth and split it. He wiped it away, examining the small smear on his finger with only mild interest.  
  
“I never accused you of committing my brother’s atrocities, Deputy,” Joseph remarked mildly. “I simply said that you had a similar temperament to him. And I fail to see how you’ve proven me wrong.”  
  
Hudson thought about slapping him again.  
  
Instead, she stormed into the workshop and slammed the door behind her.  
  
Christ, she felt like a teenager again, yelling down the hall at her mother to leave her alone. The only difference was that Joseph wasn’t chasing after her, banging on the door and barking out swears and threats in Nepalese; and her mother would have been the one slapping _her_ , not the other way around.  
  
 _I’m my mother, sans the alcoholism. Fuck me._  
  
That was a depressing thought.  
  
[---]  
  
For all her desire to leave the bunker, Hudson wasn’t sure what was waiting for them on the other side.  
  
As far as the sciences went, she’d always been more inclined to computers than chemicals or environmental science. She knew well enough from her father (the man had been a Marine, and historically-inclined to boot, so Hudson had gotten more of an in-depth education from him than she had from school. He’d expanded on her understanding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of the Cold War, of Chernobyl and North Korea and Russia and nuclear power in a way that was understandable.  
  
So, from what Hudson could figure: How long they _needed_ to spend in the bunker hinged largely on what sort of nukes had been used, and how many. Certain nuclear weapons were stronger than others; not all missiles or bombs had the same punch as Fat Man and Little Boy. The level of radiation from these weapons would determine how safe it would be to stay in Hope County: And as much as she hated to admit it, seven years was probably a reasonably safe estimate of time to avoid drinking water that had been exposed to any level of radiation.  
  
Without knowing what had been used, it was impossible to even guess how safe or dangerous the county would be. No way of knowing how much destruction had been wrought, no way of knowing the toll on the local wildlife or the soil, no way of knowing how much of the country had been obliterated versus how much had been spared. Chances were, a lot of wildlife would be gone- with so many dead from the bombs, the rest would starve from their diet of plants being destroyed. A large degree of how screwed they were ultimately depended on how much government infrastructure had been damaged in the attack. Hudson hoped that it was, maybe, just the Western half of the U.S. that had been nuked and not the East. Maybe a significant portion of the country was still operating just fine.  
  
Hudson doubted it, but it was nice to have at least a _little_ hope.  
  
Regardless of how the radiation situation played out, Hudson had seen enough on their last truck-ride to the bunker to know that a significant portion of Hope County had been destroyed in the firestorm that had resulted from the bombs. When she’d been eight a wildfire had touched down in Hope County, burning a significant portion of the Henbane before it was extinguished. It wasn’t as obvious to outsiders, to people who didn’t live in the county and spend as much time in the forest hunting as Hudson did, but there were parts of the Henbane that still hadn’t completely re-grown.  
  
That had been twenty years ago.  
  
Seven years would not be nearly enough time for all those trees, the bushes, the grass to grow back in any significant way. It was going to be ugly at worst and jarringly different at best.  
  
It made Hudson feel a terrible sort of grief. She didn’t know who among the citizens of Hope County were dead or alive, but she knew that the county itself was dead and gone. Only a shadow of its former self would be left when they left the bunker.  
  
And as much as Hudson hated the bunker, she dreaded the terrible, permanent change in her world even more.  
  
[---]  
  
“Jesus, Pratt, not you too.”  
  
Pratt rolled his eyes, flipped her off, and then rolled up his sleeve to bare his shoulder: A wooden cross wrapped in thick, dark thorns was tattooed there. “I’m religious. Always have been.”  
  
Hudson rubbed her eyes and plopped down beside him on the couch. Joseph and Rook were in the war room, and Joseph’s preaching was audible from where they were sitting. He was in Prophet of God Mode, where he projected everything so loudly that it couldn’t be ignored. “Sorry. I knew that- of course I knew that. Just… Praying while Joseph’s talking looks weird.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
Hudson reached out and ran a hand up and down his back; Pratt shivered, but didn’t pull away. She considered asking something that had only recently occurred to her, a theory cobbled together from a bunch of little things she’d noticed about Pratt recently.  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Do you believe Joseph talks to God?” Hudson asked bluntly.  
  
Pratt hesitated. She couldn’t tell whether it was out of nerves, or if he was trying to find the least amount of words to explain himself properly. “I don’t know.”  
  
“So you’re open to it?” Hudson couldn’t help the note of disbelief in her voice.  
  
Pratt raised an equally disbelieving eyebrow at her and pointed to the ceiling. “Where are we, Joey?”  
  
It took a moment, but Hudson got the point: They were in a steel bunker riding out a nuclear holocaust that just _happened_ to coincide with Joseph’s predictions regarding the Collapse. “Point taken.”  
  
“I don’t, uh… uh… _worship_ him. I just…” He shrugged. “He wasn’t wrong.”  
  
“Doesn’t mean he was _right_.”  
  
Pratt snorted. “Tell _him_ that.”  
  
Hudson snorted too, and they both started laughing a weak, half-humorous half-grim laughter that hurt more than anything else. “So, you’re not gonna reap anyone on his behalf once we get out of here?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Pratt said with a little smile, even though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No. I believe a little. Uh… About… About survival, and the Collapse. Not everything, not about God.”  
  
Hudson sighed with relief. He had more belief in Joseph than she would like, but as long as he wasn’t going Rook’s way of total devotion she could live with it. As long as he never made the jump to ‘Joseph was right about _everything_ ’, she could handle it. “That’s a relief. Hate to think you’d be… Well… Going Rook’s way.”  
  
Pratt sighed deeply. “Nah. Not that bad. Never that bad.”  
  
They sat in silence together, Hudson’s hand still on Pratt’s back, as Joseph kept right on preaching.  
  
[---]  
  
The days passed, and Hudson mellowed.  
  
A _little_. If asked, she could not overemphasize how _small_ the mellowing in question was. But she did mellow.  
  
She grew accustomed to Joseph’s presence, however aggravating he tended to be. There were times when she couldn’t tell if he was trying to spite her, or if he was being a pain in the ass without even realizing it. Hudson figured it was a little bit of both, depending on the day.  
  
Occasionally, Pratt or Rook would show an ounce of improvement: Rook would vocalize something a little better than a pained rasp, something that actually sounded like a coherent word or two; other times, Pratt would manage to get through a decently-long sentence with little to no hesitation. It was a tiny moment of happiness, of hope- but then Pratt would struggle with his speech to the point of smacking the wall, or kicking a chair; and of course, Rook was still going back to Joseph.  
  
Hudson held out hope that things would improve when they were out of the bunker. She hoped that this maddening claustrophobia was putting her in a darker mood than she would have been otherwise. She hoped that the citizens of Hope County had endured the Collapse as valiantly as they’d endured Eden’s Gate, and that there were others to meet them when they emerged from the bunker. She hoped that being outside and around others might break Rook of this attachment to Joseph, remind her what she’d fought so hard for.  
  
Hudson hoped.  
  
She held her temper, tried to stay calm, and she hoped that the world outside the bunker would be more forgiving than Joseph seemed to think it would be. Regardless of what it was, she would do her damndest to make something of it not just for herself, but for Pratt and Rook as well.  
  
Something beyond Joseph Seed.  
  
Rook would stay for Joseph.  
  
Pratt would stay for Rook.  
  
And Hudson would stay for them.  
  
-End


End file.
